Sport

Strong showing in club contest

SAMURAI trio James Cooper, Lewis Mills and Dan Jones produced some strong performances at the club’s open black belt event.

In the 66 kilogram category, Reece Bourne was giving away a lot of weight but he bounced back after defeat to a Sheffield player to take bronze.

Mills, son of coach Ian Mills, started very well with maximum point wins against players from Market Drayton and the Royal Navy. This put him into the semi-final where he was unlucky to lose to the eventual gold medalist from Sheffield University. However, he came back well to win the bronze.

Trevor Connolly defied the years to win a bronze medal in the u90kgs category, losing to a Russian player from London in the semi-final.

Cooper made a strong debut as he won bronze.

Players from Gosport, Cardiff and Devizes were all thrown for maximum points before he lost narrowly in the quarter-finals by a single penalty against another player from Devizes, who went onto make the final.

That meant that Cooper qualified for the repechage to compete for the bronze.

He reached the final of the repecharge and then threw a player from Herfordshire for maximum point to take the bronze.

In the U73kg section Sam Bravo and Sam Woodward had a good go for the Samurai in their first time in the higher grade group.

Dan Jones reached the final in the U90kg but had to settle for silver.

Ellie Arnull, 14, did well to finish fourth out of the seven players in her group and so win a bronze medal.

The Samurai Judo Club’s position as the best judo tournament organisers in Britain has been confirmed by the news that the British Judo Association has asked them to run five national events over the next year and a half.

For details about Samurai club call 07761 122977 or go to www.samurai.org.uk